Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

The Good
Monkey Island 2 is what some would not believe, not only a worthy succesor to the first Monkey Island, but this one completely blows it out of the water. It's longer, funnier, and features the best puzzles I have ever seen in an adventure game hands down. The game has a slightly dark tone that most other comedy games so that makes it even more distinct. The music is amazing and rivals anything done today, it's that good. The graphics are excellent, all of them are much darker and distinct than the first game. I'd like to even mention the puzzles again, they are perfection. These are the best you can get. The entire game just lays the puzzles on you, there's usually about three or four different things you can solve at one time making the game seem very non-linear.

The Bad
There's one thing, I didn't like about the game and that is that it did not get the true sequel it deserved. Let me explain. There was supposed to be three MI games, a trilogy. The orignal developer never got to make the true third sequel, so the ending of the second game was never truly explained. So, the ending to MI2 is very...odd. And the entire Secret of Monkey Island, was supposed to be explained in the true 3rd game. No one really knows for sure what it is as the original developer has the secret locked away in his head. But, the main theory is that The Secret of Monkey Island is that it's not real, it's all in the imagination of Guybrush, a young kid walking around in an amusement park. Kind of like what the ending of MI2 shows.

The Bottom Line
A classic, the best Monkey Island, and one of the best games ever created. If you never played, track it down this instance.

The Good
Monkey Island 2, the sequel to the highly acclaimed Secret Of Monkey Island, is also a great, great, great game. It tells the story of Guybrush Threepwood, a would-be pirate in search of Big Whoop, a truly legendary treasure, which is so secretly hidden nobody even knows what it consists of. The ghost pirate LeChuck, the bad guy which Guybrush killed in the first episode, is also back and seeks revenge. It is a fantastic tale whose elements could have populated the mind of some of the greatest writers in History, but, instead of writing a book, somebody decided to write a game script. And, somehow, it turned out to be a comedy graphic adventure with a great, although very strange, storyline.

The characters are really elaborated and have their own unique personality. The plot is amazing, really nice, and deserved a book or a movie (would have been a blockbuster). The whole tale is told in a humorous way and silly jokes and situations are frequent.

While most adventures games, even having a good plot, fail to get the attention of the player, Monkey Island is really involving and has a great ambience. Maybe because of the harmony between graphics, sound, controls and the idea. And also because the game doesn't take itself too seriously.

The interface is very nice, and makes the game very easy and comfortable to play. In other words, gameplay is fabulous! Thanks to Lucas Arts SCUMM system (which was, in those times, much better than Sierra OnLine system), the game is much nicer to play than many adventure games released after ten years.

The puzzles are not obvious as they are in many adventures. They are very well elaborated and some are very funny. Don't expect Monkey Island to be a logic game. The challenges may be silly, but they are very clever and sometimes require lots of thinking. The quality of the puzzles became a Monkey Island (and also a Lucas Arts) trademark.

The graphics were very good for a 1991 game. Of course there are no videos or 3D panoramas, but the 256-color VGA graphics (320x200 resolution) are still not only OK, but also involving. The hand-drawn backgrounds brought new standards to adventure games and the sprites (=moving objects) were as detailed as the low resolution could allow.

Music is fantastic. Well, at least for a game. In fact, the Monkey Island tune could have easily been the soundtrack to the Monkey Island movie. It really feels like something written by John Williams and, if not a true classic, at least a nice tune which fits the game and is easily recognizable. The sound quality is OK. Don't expect to hear Guybrush's voice and any elaborated sound effects. They are simple, but effective.

The Bad
There are indeed so many good things about this game the bad things get sort of offuscated or even forgiven.

The main problem: the years came and passed and Monkey Island 2 is dated. The graphics and sound are not impressive anymore and there are better interfaces. Technology evoluted and Monkey Island 2 deserved a re-make (Sierra is re-making the King's Quest series, why not a Monkey Island re-make?).

Well, yes, there are other problems. Problems which were born with the game. It is not short, but could have been longer. It is so nice to play people would beg for more (and the third episode only came six years later, so they had to wait a lot!).

And the end of the game seems to be the main point here. It is strange and does not seem to fit. It may be disappointing. I am not going to tell the end of the story here to spoil the fun. Some people even created theories to explain it. I'll just say that it makes sense thinking as the end of Monkey Island 2 as an isolated game and one could easily imagine what Big Whoop is. But it is strange to think of it in the context of the series. It doesn't reveal the secret of Monkey Island (and doesn't even mention it). Monkey Island 3 brought a different explanation for the game, but not very convincing.

The Bottom Line
TRUE CLASSIC. Monkey Island 2 is one of the best sequels ever and retains all the magic of the first game. And it is one of the reasons people say games were much better ten years ago.

The Good
LeChuck's Revenge has been described by some as "the best sequel ever". Considering the fact it was a sequel to a truly fantastic game, and therefore had to be top quality itself, it is really a great compliment, and I think it was justified. The best thing about this game is that it didn't merely repeat all the stuff that made the first game great, but went its own way; it retained much of the original game's atmosphere, while distancing itself from it in tone and style.

Monkey Island 2 is much crazier and much darker than the first game. I played this game two times, and I always felt I was participating in some sort of a carnival show, where the borders between dream and reality are vague, where everything is possible, and where weird and even grotesque situations have become the norm.

The humor is now more edgy, less naive-romantic, sometimes even slightly "black" (though not too much so to destroy the sweet atmosphere that is still there). Just watch that skeleton-dancing cutscene or the insane spitting that takes place when Guybrush and Wally are hanging over a pit of acid. This is the kind of weird humor that made the game so original for that time. Of course, now such things don't surprise anyone, because many adventure games tried to imitate this attitude later (many of them utterly failing), but Monkey Island 2 was really the first that introduced such kind of humor to the genre.

And the puzzles? Carrying a monkey in your inventory, using the most improbable inventory items with the most improbable stuff... pity I can't name specific examples, because no spoilers are allowed in reviews. Suffice to say that the puzzles in this game are even wackier than in its predecessor. The difficulty level is also significantly higher; but the game also has an "Easy" mode, where some of the trickiest puzzles are eliminated.

The dialogues are brilliantly written and very amusing; just check out the conversations with Elaine or with Stan (who became even funnier in this game). Generally, Monkey Island 2 is one of the funniest game I've ever played, and certainly the funniest in the series. Just think of that hilarious library on Phatt Island... There is no end to jokes, puns, pop culture references, and so on.

Now, I was among those few who really loved the ending. I even think it was the best part of the game! It was absolutely weird, very dark, strangely romantic, and in a certain way, even tragic...

The graphics are outstanding, certainly belonging to the finest examples of hand-painted 256-color graphics ever. The characters are noticeably better animated than in the first Monkey Island. The game also boasts a dynamic soundtrack, with some of the most beautiful MIDI compositions around.

The Bad
I'm not sure I loved the new concept of Guybrush. I found him a bit too cynical and somehow weary in the sequel; the youthful enthusiasm from the first game was lacking. Perhaps as a result of that, LeChuck's Revenge doesn't quite charm the same way its predecessor did. It is definitely "bigger and better" than the first one, but the magical "I want to be a pirate" atmosphere is somewhat downgraded to give more freedom to hilarious situations and puzzles.

Speaking of which, the difficulty level here is certainly not for the casual player; even on "Easy", many puzzles are guaranteed to give you a headache, and the much larger game world (three islands you can - and should - move between during a large portion of the game) can sometimes reduce the puzzle-solving to a slightly tedious "click on everything until something happens".

The Bottom Line
The sequel to the glorious simian adventure is much crazier and wackier than its predecessor; although it doesn't quite ooze the same charm, it definitely went further in making the whole business more edgy and entertaining. Add to this killer production values and loads of gameplay, and you'll have a great classic on your hands.